During 1993 and 1994 I wrote a book for Addison Wesley about how to create a professionnal video game on PCs.

At that time, you had to know a lot about the underlying hardware and to be fluent in assembly language and C or C++.

Reminding the Intel 386 and its 32-bit protected memory model for instance? In that mode, you were able to address all the memory at once, avoiding to deal with EMS (Extended Memory System).

And what about the various graphics card that were on the market at that time? Each chipset had to be adressed specifically with the relevant asm code and port management. And by 1993, no much — not to say none — information was available, including on the Internet.

The sound cards? Do you remember the Gravis Ultra Sound?

And what to say of the interrupts for DOS?

Read the excerpt (in french only) to see how — in this area, Bob Dylan was true — things have dramatically changed.

Download the excerpt

Here is a movie of the technology update captured straight from the engine: I was piloting the jet, chasing a Boeing B747 regular flight.

In 1980, computers were somewhat odd in the people mind or life; for most of us, a computer was certainly more a SF concept than a tool or an usual object.

In this page I will try to gather some of the information about this holly period, and I start with a the list of all the machines I have had or still have.

1980-1982: Texas Instruments TI-57

This video is a cut scene from the first mission video intro:

These animatics are the next step after the design and execution of the storyboard.

Animatics are used to validate both the camera moves and general timing of the movie, prior the making of the actual realtime cinematic.

Enjoy!

Game introduction

Day One: The legend of the Raven

Day One: Meeting Boris

Day One: The Hung Man

Day to Night: Sandra's transformation

Enjoy all those video from the game we made!

The hospital

The Circle

The Castle

Paris

The Museum

Le Père Lachaise

The Catacombs

The Eiffel Tower

The End